Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Sep 26, 2010 9:39 pm I just started building a month ago as an owner builder. The excavator subcontracted a large dozer driver to grade the road through my bush, and then suggested (to be honest I felt pushed) that I use it for the rest of the day to clear the trees in front of the house and excavate the house site itself. At this stage there was no slab plan, and being a complete novice I didn't know I need one. I was originally told the height at the back of the cut would be 1-1.5m by the excavator. As the land is on a slight slope of about 10-12 degrees, and there was a 45 degree batter at the back, by the time the cut was finished by the dozer driver the height was about 2.3m, and worse still the sides were about 1m high as well. In other words, the house would now be sitting in a hole. The council planner has said he can't allow me to build on the site as is because of drainage problems, and I don't want to anyway because it looks awful. It's going to be expensive to fix, probably at least $5,000 plus if I want to keep going with the slab and put in compacted fill and piered slab. My question is - in this situation, how much is the excavator liable? There was no slab plan, him and the dozer driver decided how to do it themselves, and I stupidly trusted that they knew what they were doing. I now have a house site that I can't build on, and the natural contour of my land is stuffed up. Any suggestions on whether I can make the excavator pay for fixing this? I feel like he should as I hired him to do the site excavation and I now have an unusable site. Re: Botched Excavation - Help! 2Sep 27, 2010 11:20 am Personally I think that if you are the OB you are responsible, for it is you who hire and also to check what the people you hire are doing. But, I've been wrong on a few occasions and maybe again this time. Good luck, because it sounds like you are in a pickle. Re: Botched Excavation - Help! 3Sep 27, 2010 7:01 pm I'm afraid this might be a case of you as the owner builder not doing enough research before commencing work. I don't know that the earthworker can be held responsible since he obviously had nothing to work to when doing it and no written agreement. Maybe he should have known better than to do a site cut without a specified and council approved finished floor level nominated but making him responsible when you are technically the builder and on site supervising would be difficult I think. For a brighter note - $5k sounds a fairly reasonable amount to fix - it could be worse. Put it down to experience and try and save the $5k back somewhere else in the job. You should still come out in front as an OB. Re: Botched Excavation - Help! 4Sep 27, 2010 7:26 pm Yep unfortunately you will have to take this one on the chin. The contractor had no plans or levels to go by. Maybe he should have known better but you’re the OB supervising and responsible for the works. Hmmm, I have checked your past posts and it seems that you are in NSW, not WA as I had thought. It pays to show your State in your avatar. Retaining wall regulations… 5 7845 No one can give you a meaningful answer without looking at your building contract, what happened on site and who designed your house You should get experienced building… 1 10182 Hi there, We’ve recently had plans approved to add a 1st storey addition to our existing house for a growing family in Sydney. With the current cost of building… 0 4275 |